Nina Metz

In the 1970s, after Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's military coup, the abduction and torture of civilians (whether they were political dissidents or not) was a regular occurrence. This is the reality that informs playwright Ariel Dorfman's "Death and the Maiden," the story of a torture survivor who confronts her one-time jailer. As directed by Barry Brunetti for TimeLine Theatre, the play has a resonating potency that is horrifying and magnetic. At first glance, Paulina and Gerardo appear an average couple, bickering mildly over things like spare tires and missing jacks. But Paulina's timid, uncertain demeanor is quickly replaced with a steely, almost dispassionate anger when she comes face-to-face with the man who tortured, raped and humiliated her during a government-sponsored abduction fifteen years earlier. She enacts her very own war-crimes tribunal--at gunpoint--in her living room, much to the consternation of her conflicted husband who argues, "We can't use their methods, we're different." But violence begets violence, and it seems unreasonable to expect Paulina to break the cycle. Thanks to a beautifully modulated performance by Mary O'Dowd, Paulina is at once precise and utterly explicit in her fury.

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